


Two Hearts And No Brain

by ktfics



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-22 23:44:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20330488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktfics/pseuds/ktfics
Summary: Kokichi pines and decides that the best way to show his affection is via theft.





	Two Hearts And No Brain

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is @dykeenvy if you wanna talk kiyoumota!

Kokichi is careful.

He sits perched on the edge of Kiyo’s desk, legs kicking back and forth, forcing an idle expression on his face that he doesn’t really feel.

“You’re throwing this out?” He asks, voice innocent, hands keeping a purposefully loose grasp on the tube of lipstick Kiyo had just asked him to put in the garbage.

“Hm?” Kiyo looks up from the manuscript his bandaged fingers had been carefully leafing through. “Ah, yes. That one is running quite low, and I just bought a new tube so I no longer have any use for it.”

Kokichi nods, tries to keep his words unhurried. “Right, right. Can I have it?”

“Why?” Kiyo shoots him a quizzical look, and Kokichi just tilts his head and grins.

“I wanna write on Kaito’s mirror with it so he’ll think it’s blood! Haven’t given him a good ghost scare in awhile, after all. Gotta keep him on his toes!” Kokichi examines Kiyo’s face, the slight movement in his cheeks, the amusement in his eyes, and thinks he might be smiling under the mask.

“Of course, what a righteous cause. Well then, you may take it. Try to take some pity on poor Kaito’s heart, won’t you?”

Kokichi almost laughs at that.

“Sure thing, Kiyo! You know I’m always mindful of my dear beloved rival’s heart.” He hops off Kiyo’s desk with a bounce in his step and shoves the lipstick in his pocket, fingers running over the cool metallic tube. “See you tomorrow!”

When Kokichi returns to his own room, his fingers fumble to pop off the lipstick cap. The remaining makeup is little more than a stub in the tube, and though he applies it to his own lips as carefully as he can in front of a mirror, the result is imprecise, unpracticed, a poor imitation of its original owner.

He doesn’t particularly care, though. This is, of course, not about him, or at least not like that. This is about him in every way that it isn’t; not about his vanity but his selfishness.

He hesitates a moment, feeling embarrassed, feeling stupid, his chest aching with some combination of greed and hollow resignation.

He brushes a kiss against his own hand quickly, trying to get the act of it over with. When he pulls back, there’s a smudged, bright red kiss mark stained against his pale skin.

He shoves his sleeve up and litters his arm with kisses, pretends that he cannot feel his own lips delivering the marks, goes through the necessary motions of it as fast as possible. When he’s done, he grabs a washcloth and wipes off the remaining makeup from his mouth.

He stares at his own work. If he squints his eyes, tilts his head, holds his breath, he can almost lie to himself. He can almost believe he is loved. 

He looks at himself in the mirror, his face not quite blank now that there’s no one around to hide his emotions from other than himself. His frown is a small, ugly thing. The marks on his arm swim in his vision, turn from kisses to bruises and then back to kisses again, and he’s not sure which image makes him hurt more.

He scrubs the marks off his arm almost as quickly, as imprecisely as he applied them. The next day, his skin is a raw canvas of red, and when Kiyo asks him how his prank went with genuine interest in his eyes, Kokichi merely smiles and lies and tells him he decided to do something better with his time. His hand clenches against his own arm and he almost, almost wishes Kiyo would notice, almost wishes he would kiss the wound better.

\--

Kokichi is careful.

When Kaito chases him out of the classroom, fist half-raised in anger, he just clutches the jacket he’s snatched a little tighter in his hands and picks up his pace as much as he can.

Kaito may have longer legs but if there’s one thing Kokichi’s good at, it’s running.

He rounds a corner and lets out a sharp, exhilarated laugh at the sound of Kaito screaming at him. Kokichi feels Kaito’s eyes pinned to his back, basks in the weight of his intense focus, all that negative attention.

He flees into the boys’ bathroom and locks himself in a stall before Kaito can stop him.

“Hey, hey, Kokichi, c’mon, class is about to start! This isn’t funny, give me my jacket back!” Kaito’s fist bangs against the stall door once.

“Sorry, this stall is occupied! Take a number and come back later!” Kokichi giggles when he hears Kaito falter.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Give me back my jacket, you little-” A hand reaches through the gap under the door and Kokichi squeals, a laugh high in his throat as he scrambles backwards.

The bell sounds.

“Uh-oh, Kaitoooo, better hurry to class!” He hears Kaito let out some muffled swearing before the arm retreats and his feet pound away.

“I’ll come back for you later!” He shouts behind him.

Kokichi waits for the bathroom door to slam shut before he responds with “Please do!”

He sticks both his arms through the jacket sleeves and sits on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, unmoving.

Kaito is a tactile person; he doesn’t hesitate to give either of his sidekicks hugs, and though he and Kokichi are rivals and barely friends and will be nothing at all to each other once they graduate, Kaito has ruffled his hair before, has rested his hand on his shoulder.

It’s gross, really. Kaito is gross and stupid and seems to care about everyone equally, even his own self-appointed rival.

Kokichi wraps the jacket tight around him, lets the cold from the floor seep into his body just so he can feel the contrast, just so the embrace he’s imagining becomes a little more solid, a little more real.

He doesn’t bother showing up to class for the rest of the day, just drops Kaito’s jacket on the floor in front of his dorm room door and doesn’t spare it another glance, sleeps on top of his covers that night so he doesn’t have to remember the warmth he stole earlier.

\--

Kokichi was not careful enough.

“Y’know what’s really pissin’ me off right now? I can’t find my fucking calc book. Coulda sworn I left it sitting on my desk, but now it’s just… gone.” Kaito takes a thoughtful bite out of the meal Kiyo prepared for the three of them.

“Hm, that is odd,” Kiyo says, tugging his mask down just slightly so he can eat. “I seem to have misplaced a couple novels myself, as well as a roll of bandages that I normally keep in my bathroom drawers.”

Kokichi fidgets slightly in his seat, remembers running his fingers over the well-worn covers of those books, remembers the slight roughness to Kiyo’s bandages against his cheek.

“I can’t fuckin’ find one of my goddamn pajama shirts! I mean, how do you even lose that kinda thing, anyways? It’s not like I take it out of my room!” Kaito gestures angrily with his chopsticks as Kokichi thinks about swimming in fabric and the lingering scent of cheap cologne.

“Maybe someone’s stealing from the dorms as a joke?” Kiyo asks, and Kokichi doesn’t miss the way his golden eyes flit to look at him.

“The only person here who’d fuckin do that is Kokichi,” Kaito mutters, his eyes also swiveling to stare at him.

“Nope! Couldn’t be me!” Kokichi gives them both a cheerful grin. “I’m missing one of my own textbooks, I’ll have you know! Besides, what would little old me do with some musty bandages or icky hair gel or-”

“Hey,” Kaito’s eyes narrow, “I never fuckin’ mentioned that I was missing some hair gel.”

“There’s also the fact that you don’t tend to look at your own textbooks, Kokichi. I doubt you’d notice if one went missing.” Kiyo tilts his head at him.

“I- well, you see,” Kokichi blinks at the twin accusing stares he’s receiving. “The question still stands, what would I want with your gross old stuff?”

“I don’t know,” Kiyo murmurs, “But I believe you’re the one that has to answer that question, now. Not us.”

Kokichi squirms, tries to pull a convincing lie out of the back of his head but, for once, doesn’t find one readily available. His cheeks flush.

If Kiyo and Kaito didn’t hate him before, which is a big “if,” they certainly won’t like him now.

Well, good. Maybe now, they’ll stop inviting him out to lunch and half-smiling at him and listening to the bullshit he spews like it means anything. Maybe now, they’ll stop getting his hopes up and he’ll be able to stop all his ugly wanting.

He pouts, lets out an exaggerated groan, and flops down onto his back. He waits for them to leave.

Kiyo leans over him, blinking, his expression bemused. “Kokichi? What are you doing?” 

Kaito’s head pops in next to Kiyo a second later. “Yeah, man, what the fuck is this?”

“I’m tanning,” Kokichi mutters, his vision entirely filled by the two of them. He shuts his eyes. “And you’re blocking my sun. Move. Go. Shoo.”

“No,” Kiyo says, “I would still like to know what you’ve been doing with our belongings.” 

“They’re in my room,” Kokichi says, voice bland. “In my desk. Now go.”

“I don’t give a shit where they are right now, I wanna know why you took ‘em, Kokichi,” Kaito chimes in.

Kokichi opens one eye, makes sure his voice is drenched in sarcasm. “Fine, I took your stuff because I like both of you and wanted to imagine touching you even though I know that’ll never happen in real life because neither of you really like me. Happy?”

Kiyo’s fingers brush against the back of Kokichi’s hand. Kaito grips onto Kokichi’s shoulder.

“Wha- that was a lie, you know, what are you-”

They both tug on him until he’s sitting upright.

“Kokichi, we both voluntarily spend most of our free time with you. We’re eating lunch with you right now. Why would you think we don’t like you?” Kiyo rubs his thumb along the back of Kokichi’s hand.

“Well-”

“Dude, I wouldn’t fucking chase you around if I didn’t like being near you.” Kaito gives him a wide grin, grip loose around Kokichi’s forearm, the scent of cologne even stronger now that they’re so close together.

“Huh? Hold on-”

Kiyo leans in and brushes a kiss against the back of Kokichi’s hand; Kokichi stares at the red mark with eyes uncomprehending.

He looks up, eyes darting between the two of them and their soft smiles, before pouting again.

“If you liked me, you should have said something!” he exclaims.

“Why the fuck was it our job to say something?” Kaito yells back, brows furrowed.

“Because- because nobody likes me! It’s kind of my schtick, if you haven’t noticed!”

“Well, we like you!” Kaito throws his hands up in the air. “There, you happy? You get it now?”

Kokichi huffs and lunges forward, hands going up to cup Kaito’s face and kiss him soundly on the lips. Kiyo breathes out a small laugh, looking amused until Kokichi pulls back and entangles his fingers properly with Kiyo’s, leaning up to rest his hand on his shoulder and kiss him as well.

He settles back down and smugly looks between Kiyo’s smudged lipstick and Kaito’s ruffled hair. “Yes, I’m happy now.”

“I still need my fucking calc book back,” Kaito mutters, a fond grin blooming across his face despite himself.

“And I’ll need my belongings returned as well,” Kiyo murmurs, also smiling.

“Ah, you’ll just have to come to my room with me to get your stuff back!” Kokichi starts to stand, Kaito grabbing onto his free hand as they all help each other up. “Whatever are we going to do while we’re in there?”

Kaito barks out a laugh. “You’re a piece of shit!” He tucks Kokichi under his arm.

“Indeed,” Kiyo agrees, and moves his hand to rest on Kokichi’s back.

“You love me anyways! No take backs!” And Kokichi laughs as they roll their eyes at him and hold him close and he accepts their comfort without feeling like he’s committed some crime, like he’s taken something he isn’t meant to have. 

He laughs and allows himself to want them and for the first time in weeks, he feels properly warm.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
